Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a compound-eye image pickup apparatus configured by arraying a plurality of optical systems.
Description of the Related Art
Previously, with respect to a compound-eye image pickup apparatus including a plurality of optical systems disposed parallel to each other, an image pickup apparatus which performs focus control (AF control) is known. In the compound-eye image pickup apparatus, a load in performing the AF control increases when a defocus amount for each of the optical systems needs to be calculated.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-207774 discloses a compound-eye image pickup apparatus which performs AF control by a contrast detection method by using a short focus optical system based on an image signal obtained from an image pickup element corresponding to the short focus optical system having a deep depth of focus, and then it performs AF control of a long focus optical system based on an AF result of the short focus optical system. Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. 2010-521005 discloses a compound-eye image pickup apparatus which performs AF control of an optical system selected for capturing an image by using an output signal from an image pickup element via the other optical system when one optical system is selected for capturing the image of two optical systems. As described above, in the compound-eye image pickup apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-207774 and Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. 2010-521005, the AF control is performed by using the image signal obtained from one optical system, and thus a load in performing the AF control is reduced.
However, the compound-eye image pickup apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-207774 performs the AF by the contrast detection method by using the short focus optical system having a deep depth of field. Therefore, when the AF result obtained by using the short focus optical system is applied to the long focus optical system having a shallow depth of focus, the accuracy of the focus control is deteriorated. The compound-eye image pickup apparatus disclosed in Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. 2010-521005 performs the AF control by using the short focus optical system having a deep depth of field, and therefore the accuracy of the AF control in other optical systems having different depth of field is deteriorated. Accordingly, in the configurations of Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-207774 and Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. 2010-521005, focal points in a plurality of optical systems cannot be determined efficiently and accurately.